Balarama Music

Beatles Countdown #84 – She’s Leaving Home

Mar 16

Doug1960s john lennon, paul mccartney, the beatles 1 Comment

A stunning piece from the masterpiece Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band clocks in at #84: “She’s Leaving Home!”

Though later called “a McCartney song through-and-through,” Paul would himself say that John wrote the song with him. While Paul handled most of the composition, John would add the lyrics to the chorus as well as sustained notes to the music which Paul later said made the song what it is. Paul said he drew his inspiration from a newspaper article about a girl who had run away from home in February 1967 without any of her belongings. The girl was Melanie Coe who, in an ironic (or not) fashion, had actually met the band in 1963 on the TV Show Ready Set Go after winning a competition. Paul himself was the one to award her for her miming skills! At first, Melanie didn’t realize the song was about her though she could see the similarities. After hearing Paul talk about the song in an interview, she was able to piece it together that she was the inspiration to the song. Coincidentally, Melanie said Paul even got most of her life right as she did feel like she was living alone for so many years and her parents had given her everything that money could buy. Kind of weird, huh?

The song itself was one of few that The Beatles didn’t play on such as “The Inner Light” which we already covered here. It doesn’t feature George or Ringo at all sadly and didn’t even feature the Fifth Beatle George Martin. Paul had called George up to do the arrangements for the song like he had done for most of their other work like “Eleanor Rigby,” but George was busy at the time. Impatient as always, Paul quickly snagged arranger Mike Leander to handle the song. Having been used for all their songs up to that moment, George Martin was understandably a little upset over this, but still produced the song. In an interesting bit of trivia, this would be the only song to feature authorized arrangements other than George Martin. I say authorized as the infamous Let It Be album featured arrangements by Phil Spector, though Paul McCartney has famously said he did not agree to those arrangements at all. Even without using Martin, The Beatles still turned out a wonderful song that was even respected by classical composers with Ned Rorem saying the song was “equal to any song that [Franz] Schubert ever wrote.” Not bad for a rock band.

Song: She’s Leaving Home
Album: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Year: 1967

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